1
LILA HART
For at least fifteen minutes, I had been standing on the sidewalk, clutching the key to my brand new house. My heart fluttered every time I thought about how I was going to decorate this little treasure, and what color I was going to paint the living room.
Four months ago, on a whim, I had pulled over after seeing the for-sale sign buried in the overgrown hedges. I had done multiple double takes after researching the asking price because in today's market it was simply unheard of. A five-bedroom, two-story house with a bay window going for forty thousand dollars was some kind of unicorn. And I had jumped at the opportunity because I simply wasn't making what others were, considering I was just a receptionist at a pediatrician's office. Every vacation I hadn't taken, every happy hour I had skipped, every sad little packed lunch I had eaten at my desk instead of going out with coworkers had quietly added up to this moment. This key. This house.
Mine.
I finally pulled in a deep breath and marched up onto the covered porch. The door gave way with a slight creak and I smiled. "Honey, I'm home!"
Of course no one answered me back, but I giggled just the same. Stepping inside, stale air hit me, and I immediately wanted to crack a window and get some fresh air moving through the place. Dust floated through the slanted light and I added a deep clean to my mental checklist, right under buy curtains and figure out why this place was forty thousand dollars.
I closed the door behind me and locked it into place, easing across the room. A floorboard creaked beneath me and I paused, listening to the sound travel through the quiet house like a ripple.
It was old and creaky. But baby…tt was mine.
And if I didn’t get a strong grip, I was going to cry,
Three hours earlier, I had been sitting across from my realtor in a beige conference room, holding a pen like it weighed forty pounds.
"Congratulations." Sandra slid the final page across the table with a smile. "You are officially a homeowner."
I laughed, and it came out slightly hysterical. "Please don't say that out loud."
She blinked. "Why not?"
"I'm afraid someone from the bank is going to realize they made a mistake and come running back through that door."
Sandra laughed. I signed my name before anyone could stop me.
The drive to Blackthorn Ridge had taken just over two hours, which I spent talking to myself and singing along to a playlist I had titled I Did That specifically for this occasion.
"You own a house," I told my reflection in the rearview mirror somewhere around mile marker forty. "You, Lila Hart, own an actual house."
My reflection looked cautiously optimistic.
The Welcome to Blackthorn Ridge sign appeared around a gentle curve in the road, nestled between two enormous pine trees like it had always been there. The lettering was old-fashioned and slightly faded, and below the town name, in smaller script, someone had added: Established 1743. Population: 412.
I slowed down just enough to read it properly.
The town itself was the kind of place that belonged on a postcard. The roads were narrow, and lined with maple trees. There was even a small main street with a bakery, a hardware store, and what appeared to be an extremely serious bait shop. Flower boxes were on the windows of some of the houses. A hand-painted mural on the side of the post office. Genuinely, deeply charming. The kind of charming that belonged on a Hallmark movie set, if Hallmark believed in ghosts.
I kept on driving till I reached my destination.
When I pulled into the driveway for the first time as the actual owner, I sat in the car for a long moment before getting out.
The house was beautiful standing at two stories, white clapboard siding that needed a fresh coat but still had good bones, a wraparound porch. There was a bay window that caught the late afternoon light and threw it across the overgrown front yard like something out of a painting. The hedges were wild but the flower beds needed some major work. The porch railing also seemed to be leaning like a pair of work boots worn by a heavy construction worker.
Holy shit, it was perfect.
It was also very, very quiet. Not peaceful quiet. Something closer to held-breath quiet, the kind that made you aware of how loud your own heartbeat was. There were no birds in the yard, no squirrels in the oak tree at the corner of the property. The air sat completely still even though the trees on either side of the street were shifting gently in a breeze I couldn't feel from where I stood.
I looked up at the house and it almost seemed as the curtain in the left handed window moved. I stared at it and when nothing else shifted, I shook it off feeling silly.
I pressed my lips together, picked up the first box from the back seat, and told myself it was an old house with old curtains and there was absolutely nothing strange about any of this. I carried the box to the porch and absolutely did not look at that window again.
I was on my third trip from the car when I felt it, that distinct specific sensation of being watched. Finally, I set a box down on the porch railing and turned around slowly, scanning the quiet street.
